‘On the other hand, it could be years before I see Robert again,’ said LM, ‘that saddens me greatly. It’s all so very dreadful. I did like Jeanette, she was such a good addition to the family I felt. Well, life is very cruel. Very.’
‘I would say,’ said Giles, ‘it was death that was cruel. Not life. Will I still go away to school if there’s a war?’
‘Of course you will,’ said Celia, smiling at this rather precocious observation, ‘especially since St Christopher’s is right in the middle of the country. It will make me feel much happier.’
‘Why? What’s so special about the country?’
‘It’s always safer in the country, when there’s a war,’ said Celia and then seeing Oliver’s warning expression, added hastily, ‘lots of lovely fresh food and no nasty tanks driving about the roads.’
‘I’d like to see the tanks. What about you? What will you do? To get away from them?’
‘We’ll stay here of course. We’ve got work to do.’
‘What about the girls?’
‘Giles, there is absolutely no certainty that there’ll be a war yet.’
‘But if there is—’
‘I shall probably send them to stay with Grandmama. So they’ll be in the country too.’
‘But not near me,’ said Giles hopefully. He was looking forward to getting away from the twins.
‘Nowhere near you, no. Now Giles, it’s nearly your bedtime. Off you go. I’ll be up in a minute, tell Nanny.’
There was a new nanny in the nurseries; Jenny Paget and Lettie had been sacked immmediately on that dreadful day when Barty had been found to have pneumonia, and the voyage on the Titanic had been sacrificed.
‘She saved our lives,’ Celia had said, looking up at Oliver from Barty’s bedside three days’ later, when the news came through about the sinking of the Titanic and the appalling death-toll. ‘Imagine, Oliver, if Giles hadn’t told us about her being ill, we’d have been out there somewhere in that icy water, drowned – oh it doesn’t bear thinking about. And she would have died too, I should think, with that dreadful pair not even calling the doctor again. How tenuous life is, isn’t it? Just one tiny thread, pulled out of the fabric and everything changes.’
‘Thank God for it,’ he said, moving over to her, stroking her hair. He was dreadfully shaken by the news, by the thought of how close they had come to death, and for months afterwards he dreamed of drowning, of dark freezing suffocation, of separation from Celia and the children he loved so much. Even Barty now, he realised; in the first forty-eight hours when she was so close to death that they had fetched her mother, had kept a nearly hopeless vigil through the nights and days, he had looked down at her small, ferociously fevered body, listened to the fast rasping breathing, the dreadful cough, and been literally terrified at the thought of losing her. Not just because Celia, certainly, and he, to some extent, would have borne the blame for it, but because she had worked her way into his heart, with her courage, her sharp little brain, and her clear affection for him, her invariable delight at seeing him.
Giles was distraught, frantic with fear that he would lose her; ‘She was my friend,’ he kept saying, ‘my best friend, my only friend really. She can’t die, she can’t.’
Even in her anguish, Celia felt worried that he should regard Barty as his only friend.
He was an odd little boy; she had to face that fact. Solitary, serious, overtly obedient, but deeply awkward, resistant to any attempt to be drawn out of himself. He was clever, but not quick; he needed time. Once his brain had grasped something, it went to work on it; he learned to read late, but within a year was reading quite complicated stories to himself. His tables caused him dreadful trouble until he worked out a logical pattern for them; after that he had the lot learned within a day.
He was not popular at school; he entirely lacked his parents’ golden charm. Seldom invited to birthday parties, never picked for any team games, with only one or two friends, he was happiest in the holidays, when he and Barty invented elaborate fantasy games which they would play right through the long, easy days. They would be travellers in some distant country, working their way homewards across difficult territory; or soldiers in an army fighting to defend their land; or the king and queen of a kingdom, working out laws and systems and ruling their subjects (the twins when they would cooperate, and the new, much loved nanny) with solemn authority.
‘It’s against the law,’ Giles would say, ‘to walk on the pavement lines. You have to step in the middle. Otherwise you get fined.’
‘In this country,’ Barty would pronounce, ‘we have to salute the boats. And pay a forfeit if we don’t.’
Barty, at seven, was very quick; she grasped concepts and ideas, or learned by rote, all with equal facility. She went to school in the mornings; to a small establishment just off the King’s Road. She was, her teacher told Celia quietly, the cleverest child in the class. She worked hard, not out of a sense of duty, but because she loved it. Like Giles, she was not popular; if only because she was different. The other children, with their unerring instinct for such things, noted a slightly different intonation in her voice a reticence in her dealings with them, a reluctance to talk about herself. She was brought to school by a nursery maid as they were; but the difference was that the beautiful woman who came to concerts and other school events, was not her mother, but a socalled aunt. When pressed, she would talk of someone else, someone she stubbornly called her mum; a fierce loyalty prevented Sylvia from becoming Mummy, or Mama. That, to Barty, would have been the ultimate betrayal. She tried not to talk about any of it but when driven to it, she spoke the truth. And with the truth, once they had it, the other children tormented her.
They then proceeded to do some research; nursery gossip provided most of what they wanted to know. The tactful reticence of the new Lytton nanny on the subject came too late; Jenny had talked with great relish on the nanny benches, and the story was a good one.
‘Our nanny says she was living in the gutter when Lady Celia brought her home. She had to be scrubbed clean.’
‘My nanny says she had lice. And ate with her hands.’
‘Our nanny says her father was a drunk.’
‘My nanny says there were six children all in one bed.’
She was nicknamed Snipe, short for guttersnipe; like Giles, she received no invitations to parties, nor did she ever have a partner to walk with in school crocodiles. She hid her unhappiness – a familiar feeling behind proud silence, which isolated her further, and sat working over her books while the other children played. Her success at lessons became a further excuse to torment her. Snipe the Swot is what they all called her now, and she became increasingly isolated. But she preferred school to home, just the same. At least the twins weren’t there.
The twins, at four, were monstrous; Giles called them the fiends. Beautiful, fascinating, wilful, and with strong personalities working at double power, it was inevitable that they should be dreadfully spoilt. Not only at home, but wherever they went people would smile at them, point them out, say, ‘Oh, look, how sweet’.
Exquisitely and identically dressed, they loved nothing better than to go out; it was like stepping on to a stage with an endlessly appreciative audience. Total strangers stopped them, asked them their names, how old they were, told them they were pretty; they had only to do the most ordinary thing, jump off a pavement, walk along a wall, holding Nanny’s hands, and people would watch them, remarking how clever they were. By the time they were three they had appeared, photographed with their mother, in most of the society magazines and in the court pages of The Times and the Daily Telegraph.
Oliver protested at this, saying it was bad for them, but Celia, never slow to court publicity, laughed at him, told him they were too young to understand. Celia adored the twins; they possessed all the virtues – beauty, charm, sociability – that Giles did not. Accused by Oliver of favouring them, she laughed again, said it wasn’t favouritism, just a natural pleasure in having
girls.
‘Rather than a boy who is – you must admit it, Oliver – very quiet. And Giles would hate to be photographed and taken about to shops and out to tea, you know he would.’
Oliver said rather feebly that he supposed she was right. In any case, he adored the twins as well; they were so irresistibly warm and affectionate, like small, silken-haired puppies, climbing on to his lap, kissing him, whispering they loved him. In their own social circle, they were famous, everyone wanting to be their friends, claiming close association with them. From the moment they were launched into child society, at dance classes in Knightsbridge at the age of two and a half, they were social stars. There was no shortage of birthday party invitations for the twins.
‘Nobody knows how awful they are,’ whispered Giles to Barty one day, watching the twins, sweetly smiling in identical white lace dresses, waving goodbye to some friends who had come to tea. Barty nodded sympathetically.
But it wasn’t quite true. Two people, at least, had the twins’ measure: one was Nanny, who was extremely strict with them, and the other was their maternal grandmother.
‘Beautiful they may be,’ she said to Celia at the end of a visit, as the twins entwined themselves on her lap, and covered her face with kisses, ignoring their mother’s instructions to go up to the nursery, ‘and very sweet. But they’re getting out of hand. All very well when they’re tiny, but later on, it will be less charming. You should be much firmer with them, in my opinion. Otherwise you’ll be sorry.’
Celia laughed and said she knew they were naughty, ‘But so enchantingly so. And they’re only tiny still. Plenty of time to be stricter later.’
Lady Beckenham said that was quite untrue, as anyone who had trained dogs or horses knew: ‘You have to be firm from the beginning. Otherwise they don’t know where they are. And then you get nasty habits developing.’
‘Mummy, the twins are little girls, not dogs.’
‘No different,’ said Lady Beckenham, ‘no different at all. You send them down to me and I’ll get them licked into shape.’
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea at all,’ said Celia laughing. But she was about to change her mind, for a rather more serious reason. On the 4th of August, 1914 when Great Britain declared war on Germany, and one hundred thousand telegrams went out to every reservist in the land, bearing the one dreadful word ‘mobilise’, her first thought was of the danger to her children and of the safety of Ashingham. A fortnight later, as the first British force entered France, she instructed Nanny to start packing the children’s clothes and warned her mother to expect them all within forty-eight hours.
‘My darling, I think you are being a little precipitate,’ said Oliver. ‘I see no great danger to any of us in the immediate future.’
‘Oliver, don’t be ridiculous. That’s exactly the point. We have to act now, before it’s too late. I want the children out of London quickly.’
‘But why?’
‘Everyone says there will be bombs raining down on London.’
‘Everyone says the war will be over by Christmas,’ said Oliver soberly, ‘neither is very likely, in my view.’
She turned to look at him; they were in the drawing-room, sitting by the window. Below them, across the Embankment, the Thames flowed peacefully past; people walked along, arm in arm, or leaned on the wall, watching the boats. The sky was clear, the sun setting in a blaze of drama; it was all very tranquil and still. Celia felt calmed, soothed; then suddenly, as the reflections of the sunset, orange and blazing red hit the water, she thought of shellfire and felt afraid.
‘Oh Oliver,’ she said, getting up, standing behind him, her hands on his shoulders, her head resting against his, ‘It’s going to be so dreadful. Why can’t people see it? The way everyone’s rushing to enlist, people walking all night, apparently from remote villages; that march down Whitehall with people cheering, the headines in the paper, all these For King and Country posters – you’d think there was some huge party about to begin. Instead of death and misery and slaughter. It’s begun already, all those poor wretches from the Amphion drowned when they hit that German mine—’
‘I think they do know. In their hearts,’ said Oliver, putting up his hand, covering hers, ‘certainly the men do. They pretend for their womenfolk. And for themselves to an extent. Not thinking about it all too much. It protects them from fear. And then, in a way, I think the country wants a war. Or thinks it does.’
‘Oh, Oliver, how could it? How could anyone want a war?’
‘My darling, it’s a basic instinct. It goes with patriotism. Of which lately there has been a vast wave. It’s almost a new religion. It’s everywhere, in the meanest street, the most modest school, the dingiest factory.’
‘The only people with any sense, as usual, who seem to see it all for what it is, are the women,’ said Celia, ‘that march on the fourth of August by the International Women was so incredibly powerful. Calling war the last great violent outburst of evil. Not much talk of patriotism then.’
‘Didn’t do much good though, did it?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘And there’s another thing. With the improvement in communications, the newspapers and the wireless, people feel more – more one. More united. Which fuels the patriotism. Add that to the sense of empire, of glory and—’ he sighed – ‘and of course, in Britain we think we can’t lose a war. But I fear this time we may be wrong. Germany is very powerful. Very powerful indeed.’
She looked down at him. ‘And – will you go? I’ve kept not asking you. I’m frightened to hear the answer, I suppose. It’s bad enough knowing that Jack will certainly be there, but—’
He was silent for a long time. Then he said, ‘I’m afraid I shall have to. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.’
Another silence; then Celia said, ‘Oliver, let’s go upstairs. I want to – be with you.’
She knew why she wanted it suddenly, and so badly; it was for her what the cheering and the laughter were to the young men, a fence against reality. Against the unspoken rider to what he had said, which was that if he went, he might no longer live at all, never mind with himself.
Jack Lytton arrived at Cheyne Walk in the middle of the afternoon a week later; he had been due for a long leave, after his four-year tour of duty in India, but that had been cancelled and he had been granted only a week. After that he was re-joining his regiment for a month’s training, before leaving for France. Well a week would be something, he thought; you could do a lot in a week. In London.
Brunson greeted him, took his coat and his luggage. ‘Lady Celia and Mr Lytton are both out, sir. At the publishing company.’ He always referred to it as the publishing company, as if it were a rather surprising place for them to be.
‘Yes, I thought they would be. I told them I wouldn’t be here until dinner time. Never mind. Could I have a whisky and soda, Brunson? I’m a bit travel weary.’
‘Certainly, sir. I’ll bring it into the drawing-room.’
‘Any of the children about?’
‘They’re all out with Nanny, sir. For a walk. They should be back shortly.’
‘Good. I can’t wait to see them. The twins were babies last time; well it was the christening. Giles must be quite a big chap by now.’
‘He is indeed, sir. going off to school in September.’
‘Poor little bugger,’ said Jack cheerfully.
Brunson looked at him doubtfully and disappeared into the pantry, only to reappear with the whisky tray.
‘Perhaps, Sir, you might prefer this in your room.’
‘Yes, that might be better, 1 – oh hallo hallo. You’re all back. Know who I am?’
The children had come into the hall; they stood staring at him.
‘You know me, Giles, surely. I’m your Uncle Jack. Don’t you remember me?’
‘I think so,’ said Giles uncertainly, and then, holding out his hand.
‘How do you do, sir.’
‘I do, I do,’ sai
d Venetia.
‘So do I,’ said Adele.
‘You don’t,’ said Giles, ‘you were only babies. He was at your christening.’
‘We do remember. Don’t we Adele?’
‘Yes we do.’
‘Well it’s very good news if you do. Do I get a kiss?’
The twins flung themselves at him; he stood up, laughing, one on each arm. They were very jolly little things. Pretty too. Extraordinarily pretty. Like their mother. Gorgeous girl, Celia. He could never quite work out how dull old Oliver had managed to nab her. She should have waited for him. He noticed Barty, standing politely quiet at the bottom of the stairs and grinned at her.
‘Hallo. You’re Barty aren’t you? You’ve grown a bit, too. Can you give me a kiss?’
He bent down, released the twins; Barty came forward, kissed him dutifully on the cheek. She was quite pretty too. Wonderful hair. Funny little thing she’d been, he’d thought at the christening. Terribly shy and quiet. Hardly surprising of course. Jack was not an imaginative person, but even he could see that finding yourself, at the age of three, dumped down with a lot of strangers and told you were going to have to live with them from now on, must be a bit difficult. He’d sort of understood from Oliver that it was intended as a temporary arrangement; it seemed to have become permanent.
‘How old are you?’ he asked her.
She fixed him with her large, hazel eyes and said, ‘Seven.’
‘My goodness, that is grown up. And what’s it like, living with this lot? Murder, I should think.’
Barty flushed, looked at the twins nervously. They were watching her, their dark eyes sharp.
‘It’s – very nice,’ she said quickly.
So that was how it was; a bit difficult. The others probably resented her like mad.
‘We like living with her,’ said Giles firmly.
‘I’m sure you do.’
The twins exchanged glances and started running up the stairs, giggling, their dark heads together.
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